Thought I'd let you know what we are doing & how we are doing it with regards to our more formal home education time (by this I mean actual work book table type stuff).

I only plan on spending 1 to 1 1/2 hrs per day on this type of thing at the moment and even at that it may not be every weekday depending on home ed group events we attend or other things that may come up like a visit from Granny, plus a short 15 min snack time is included in this. Each week I aim to introduce a letter & it's sound, a number, a color & a shape, plus just recently I have been introduced to lapbooking so I also hope to do a relevant theme lapbook i.e. we are covering letter 'p' next week so I aim to do a penguin lapbook with the boys.

I use Jolly Phonics video, finger books, work books & printable from teachers manuel which will help him to read & write the letters & then word & so on. (even our 2 yr old loves it)

With regards to numbers both boys can count to 10 & our 4 yr old with help to 20 plus. He needs help with numerical recognition & writing so I have some various worksheet from workbooks & the internet, counting & matching amounts with numbers too. I am also going to purchase Math U See soon, it looks good, when I watched the demo it just made sense to me and I believe thats half the battle in imparting knowledge - it's easier if YOU have a good understanding of it first!

Our 4 yr old knows his colors but we cover color just to make sure and so that he looks at the colors that are all around and gets a grasp of shades of color. For this we have been making colour books ie a book with things that are red or blue. I is also helping to teach my 2 yr old his colors.

Our eldest also knows basic shapes (square, circle, rectangle, triangle, star, heart & oval) but we are coving these so that he can destingush what makes a squre a squre (it has 4 equal straigh side) or a rectangle a rectangle (it has 4 straight sides, 2 long & 2 short). So with his colors he will also see the shapes that are all around too.

For letter, number & shape formation we not only use pencil& paper but have also used playdough, shaving foam, lentils in a tray, paint, chalk & black board, pipe cleaners & string, basicly anything.

Hope this helps anyone who is also just starting out too, please comment on these, add your ideas too. In my next post I hope to share some photos.